A 31-year-old Milpitas resident was walking through a shopping center parking lot on West Calaveras Boulevard when a suspect approached him claiming that he has inherited a large sum of money and wanted to donate it to charity. He then showed the victim a letter supposedly documenting the inheritance, and he had the victim speak to someone on his cell phone pretending to be a lawyer to "verify" the inheritance.

Suspect said he wanted to give two people $100,000 each, however each person had to donate $80,000 to charity and could keep $20,000. The suspect then convinced the victim and got the victim's vehicle and they traveled to a church on South Main Street where the victim was introduced to another suspect. The two suspects worked together to gain the victim's trust. The incident happened at Chase Bank located at 37 North Milpitas Boulevard and Wells Fargo Bank located at South Milpitas Boulevard on the afternoon of Thursday, July 22. The suspects went to the bank on East Calaveras Boulevard and came out with a bag that supposedly contained a large amount of cash. The victim then drove to two banks in Milpitas and withdrew large amounts of cash from his accounts. The two suspects then left with the victim's money ($15,000) and never returned.

One of the suspects is described as a black male adult, 40-50 years old, approximately 5'-9" tall and 190 lbs. According to Milpitas Police he is stocky, with "salt-and-pepper" hair, mustache, short beard and was last seen wearing a brown flannel shirt with a white pattern and slacks and spoke with an accent, and used the name of "Utta". The other suspect is an unidentified Filipino or Pacific Islander male adult, in his late 40's to early 50's, 5'-9" tall, 200 lbs. and has dark hair, brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a hat, a blue t-shirt, & blue jeans, and said his name is "Frank."

Milpitas Police warns residents about "pigeon drop" scams. If an offer seems too good to be true or requires you to provide "good faith" money in advance, it is probably not a legitimate transaction. Anyone with any information regarding this incident or similar occurrences in parking lots of shopping centers, banks, or churches is encouraged to call the Milpitas Police Department at (408) 586-2400. Information can be given anonymously by calling (408) 586-2500, or online at www.ci.milpitas.ca.gov.